The Unsuspected Hero
Dally Winston: a kid who grew up on the wrong side of town, with the wrong parents, and the wrong lifestyle. Even though throughout the book he is almost portrayed as a villain, Dally is a hero in disguise to the people around him. His ability to help his friends in any situation is a trait many characters lacked. In S.E. Hinton’s book the outsiders, the Curtis brothers and their gang try to find themselves in a world where socs are superior to the greasers. According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a hero is “ a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities,” or “one who shows courage.” In the story “The Outsiders” Dally is the biggest hero because he is selfless, caring, and strong.
First, Dally is a hero because he is selfless. In the story, when Ponyboy comes to in the ambulance he says “Dallas hit me. How come?” “Because your back was in flames, that’s why.”(Hinton Pg. 94) Dallas is so selfless that he was willing to hurt himself in order to save Ponyboy. Dallas also crawled back into the church and risked his life to save Johnny. Dally’s acts of selflessness make him a hero in “The Outsiders”.
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In the story Johnny says it to Ponyboy “but one night I saw Dally gettin’ picked up by the fuzz, and he kept real cool and calm the whole time. They were gettin’ him for breakin’ out the windows in the school building, and it was Two-Bit who did that. And Dally knew it. But he just took the sentence without battin’ an eye or even denyin’ it.” (Hinton Pg. 76) This shows that Dally cares so much about his friends that he is willing to go to jail for them and suffer consequences he should not have to. Dally is willing to do a lot of things to help his gang out, and Johnny is the only one who really recognizes it. Dally is a hero because of his caring